Day 4 Dancing on the Moon!

Today's starting out weird - I woke up before I had to! Breakfast was at 8:00 this morning, and not only did I have time to shower, dress, comb hair, and clean up my room before getting to breakfast 5 minutes early, but everyone else was 10 minutes late. I'm expecting the "Twilight Zone" theme song to start playing.

Class today started at 9:30 and was over around 12:00. The debacle of walking there late yesterday scared us into getting a bus to come get us, that and everyone's calves are sore from the walking and dancing yesterday! :^)

I think the main instructor was a bit more impressed with us today; perhaps she sees that we really are serious about dancing and aren't just spending time in Ireland doing tourist stuff. Yesterday she seemed a bit less enthused in her teaching, but she was great today! We added a few different steps onto what we already had and we've put together a pretty impressive routine for beginners!!

We invited their club to come over to America and perform and dance and teach and learn. They gave each of us a really cool medal and we showered them (the "them" consisted of 4 or 5 advanced students who were helping to teach us) with pins, shirts, wristbands and info. To top the lessons off, Mary taught "Rocky Top" really quickly. They have a style of dancing that is "heavy" and is similar to tap/clogging, so they picked it up very quickly. We also did a demo of "Sharks Tale" that went over very well!

Next - Up Puck!

We've found out about a couple of things going on this week, especially tonight, that sound pretty terrific. First is an Irish dance performance going on tonight. The medieval dinner fell through, so the extra funds BRTC has raised is going to treat the group to a play! Sounds really cool!

Until then, Katie, Katie and David are going to stay in town for some more window shopping. I'm heading out with the bigger chunk of the group on a horse and cart trip to Ross Castle, then from Ross Castle on a boat trip around Killarney Lakes. The Gates and I were thinking of going over to Ross anyway, so this worked out quite nicely. Now we take a "Jaunting Car", driven by a "Jarvey", and then take a sail around the lake on a "Water Bus"! There are so many cool phrases!

Joyce gets a kick out of phrases like "Mind your head." She was eating lunch and she saw a sign that says "Mind Stairs" and for a while she couldn't figure out what it meant (she was thinking of mental exercises or something). When she finally got it, she wanted a picture of it. As she's adjusting the shot she could hear the clanking of the kitchen right next to her. Suddenly she realizes that the noises stopped. She slowly turns her head - the entire kitchen staff was staring at her taking a picture of a safety sigh!! ROTFLOL!!! She sort of smiled and scurried back to her table. Those crazy Americans!

The Jaunting Car ride and the Water Bus ride were fun, but my favorite part was looking at Ross Castle. It's a very nicely (comparatively) preserved Irish castle with outside battlements, walls and everything! Mary probably had the most exciting time though - Mick (her Jarvey) proposed to her! But when the Water Bus captain heard about it later, he happened to know the fellow as Mick the Liar!   :^D

Then came the play To Dance on the Moon!!! That was absolutely fantastic!! The story was a bit cheesy if you're looking for realism, but then so are a bunch of Shakespeare's plays, and this play is all about the dreams and desires of passionate people! A country boy loves dance, but can't get lessons there because his family is too "sensible". When he gets older his father sends him into the city to become a mechanic. The boy falls in love witha girl but also falls in with a gang. They do a bit of B&E, but the house they break into has a gate to the underworld. The girl is kidnapped by the king of the underworld and the boy is captured when he goes after her. The boy goes through many trials and tests (for some reason they all seemed to be dance competitions!) before facing the underworld king down and rescuing his love.

The story wasn't the main thing though - the dancing was. And what what dancing it was!! There was a live, 4-person band on stage providing the important musical portions, the dancing was fantastic! We got there right before the doors were opened and got terrific seats down front! The dancers had fantastic enthusiasm and even hammed up a couple parts, I think. Most of it was heavy Irish dancing - tons of stomps, taps, kicks, and some really unbelievable moves! Some of the jump kicks REALLY blew me away! A couple of the dancers had especially incredible movement on stage - covering the entire length of the stage at running speed while spinning, tapping and jumping!! Fantastic!!! And of course my favorite parts were when a blast of out-of-this-world tap sounds exploded from their feet! Not always the fastest sounds, but groups or individuals would hit some patterns that just knocked you back with their intricacy and clarity!

It was a wonderful eventing! The first time I've seen a performance like that, and it was a knockout!! I am SO ready to start Irish Step classes - Look out Michael Flatley, here comes Jesse O'Connell!

(Oh, that's right. I haven't had any luck finding McConnell in the Irish names lists in the tourist traps, so I may need to use O'Connell as my performance name. I'm still hoping to find McConnell in a more serious Irish names store.)

Katie and I got the CD and we got it autographed by the leading lady and the king of the underworld. (Both Katie and I agree she wasn't nearly as cute in person as she appeared on stage!   :^D

5) Here we're working on Rocky Top! Payback!

1-4) We're still dancing away! Definitely feeling a bit more confident, but I'm pretty sure that's just a feeling. What we look like - shudder!
6-10) Here we go on our Jaunting Cars! This was a lot of fun, as can be seen. Hannah's jarvey even let her drive some!
11-14) Then there's Ross Castle and of course, lots and lots of pictures. It really was quite impressive to imagine it under seige with soldiers manning the walls!
15-16) And then there's David. With kids hanging off of him! Or in this case sticking their tongues at him and sitting on his lap. We've also saw a cool ruin of an abbey while floating about.
17-20) We're heading out to the play. Sorry about those shaky shots. With it being so dim, the camera was extra sensitive.
21) MIND STAIRS